For the Record: Feb. 2, 2024.
Strategies for the latest Bandcamp Friday, plus dozens of listings for new and upcoming releases.
For the Record rounds up details about new and pending recordings of interest to the new-music community: contemporary classical music and jazz, electronic and electroacoustic music, and idioms for which no clever genre name has been coined, on CD, vinyl LP, cassette, digital-only formats… you name it.
This list of release dates is culled from press releases, Amazon, Bandcamp, and other internet stores and sources, social-media posts, and online resources such as Discogs. Dates cited typically correspond to initial U.S. release, and are subject to change. (Links to Amazon, used when all else fails, do not imply endorsement.)
These listings are not comprehensive—nor could they be! To submit a forthcoming recording for consideration, email information to nightafternight@icloud.com.
All opinions expressed herein are solely my own, and do not express the views of any employer.
The lead-in.
Feeling under the weather this morning, but it wouldn’t feel right to let the first Bandcamp Friday of 2024 slip by without notice. This is the day that the popular online music platform waives its cut of all sales, which means independent artists and labels see a bit more income from every purchase from now until midnight Pacific time. And yes, we don’t know if or when another such sale will come along.
We’ve all been here before, and I don’t need to tell you how to go about doing your shopping. But a few random notes follow…
Oceanic, the dreamy new Jeff Greinke album that led Wednesday’s newsletter, is officially out today, and available for name-your-own-price download on the Projekt label’s Bandcamp page. That same status also applies to a few other recent releases; I’ve been enjoying Kali Raga, the newest from veteran voyagers Byron Metcalf and Mark Seelig. And then not on Projekt, but sharing in the same spirit (and pricing), is Waves of Now, an epic new live release reuniting two pioneers of American ambient and space music, Robert Rich and Steve Roach—an absolute must for explorers of this domain.
This is the last Bandcamp Friday for sound artist Matthew Sage’s wonderful little label, cachedmedia, which is removing its releases from the platform altogether tomorrow at 10am EST. A complete explanation is available here—but it’ll disappear tomorrow, too, so I’ve pasted the pertinent bit above. The label’s small catalog is filled with gems, including gorgeous releases from Tilth (Nathan McLaughlin and Cody Yantis), Wind Tide (Gretchen Korsmo and Andrew Weathers), and Powers/Pulice/Rolin.
Were you to pursue just one object before the label’s departure, I’d strongly recommend Shiki, a glorious compilation of four inspired seasonal releases from the socially distanced ambient-jazz quartet Fuubutsushi (Sage, Chris Jusell, Chaz Prymek, and Patrick Shiroishi).
Speaking of Shiroishi – a Los Angeles-based saxophonist, multi-instrumentalist, and activist whose praises I’ve sung here many times before – his Bandcamp page is filled with extraordinary things. He’ll be donating the proceeds of everything he sells today to fellow artist Kyoko Takenaka, a.k.a. Jinjabrew, who’s just begun chemotherapy for Hodgkin's Lymphoma. (A GoFundMe page for Takenaka, organized by yuniya edi kwon, is here.)
You can’t go wrong with Shiroishi’s canon… but if you need a place to start, milestone projects include Decension, Hidemi, Evergreen, and I was too young to hear silence. Collaborations with trumpeter Chris Williams, guitarists Jessica Ackerley and Daniel Wyche, and drummer Dylan Fujioka are also strongly endorsed; for a very different view of Shiroishi’s work, check out Quetzalcoatl, by the L.A.-based zeuhl/R.I.O. combo Corima.
A new album involving Shiroishi, not available on his personal page, is Speak, Moment, a trio with guitarist Dave Harrington and drummer Max Jaffe due March 8 on the AKP Recordings label. That’s a good reminder that Bandcamp Friday isn’t only about immediate gratification; it’s also a great day to take advantage of pre-orders for future releases, including nearly everything listed below.
New albums from the intrepid English label Another Timbre are regularly featured in this newsletter… today brings an exclusive digital compilation of selections from the label, plus a previously unreleased new recording of a piece by Marco Baldini, assembled by label proprietor Simon Reynell to raise funds for Medical Aid for Palestinians. It’s a great way to become acquainted with this crucial catalog, while also doing some good in the world.
Even artists who don’t have new releases are queuing up Bandcamp Friday offerings. Making its Bandcamp debut today is MASS, a 2007 magnum opus from percussionist-composer Bobby Previte. Inspired by Renaissance composer Guilliaume Dufay and modern master Olivier Messiaen, Previte paired an early-music vocal consort, the Rose Ensemble, with a weighty phalanx of guitars and organs played by Stephen O’Malley, Jamie Saft, Reed Mathis, and Marco Benevento, and his own assertive drumming.
New to Bandcamp is NMC Recordings, a venerable English label that has long specialized in contemporary music from Britain and Ireland. The selection on Bandcamp barely scratches the surface of this catalog’s riches, but offers vital works by Shiva Feshareki, Dai Fujikura, Donnacha Dennehy, and the late Steve Martland. Also present is Trace, an album by composer Maya Verlaak on the NMC-associated label Birmingham Record Company… which leads one to wonder whether another NMC affiliate, the constantly arresting Huddersfeld Contemporary Records, might also join the fold.
My albums of the week, plural, are The Earth Has Memory, an engulfing new solo LP from Mexican composer and media artist Concepción Huerta, out today on Elevator Bath…
…and Looking for Daniel, a sublime pairing of two recent pieces by the late Phill Niblock, just issued by Unsounds.
And my pre-order of the week is The Possibility of A New Work for Electric Guitar, a vinyl EP by Christian Wolff and Wendy Eisenberg featuring pieces by Wolff and Morton Feldman, due March 1 on Other Minds.
Both are listed below…
New this week.
Alphawhore (Gordon Beeferman, Chris Cochrane, Kevin Shea) - My Vegan Cabal (Zoar)
Alvear, Bondi & d’incise - variaciones sobre las instrucciones (Meenna)
Marc Baron/Mark Vernon - post-chance (Erstwhile)
Andree-Ann Deschenes - Wanderings - compositions by Cassio Vianna, Jasnam Daya Singh, Bianca Gismonti, Jovino Santos Neto, Kerry Politzer, Carmen Sandim, and André Mehmari (self-released)
Jason Eckardt - Passage - Jason Hardink, JACK Quartet (Kairos)
m. geddes gengras - where we stand the earth has made itself over millions of times (self-released)
Peter Gordon & Love of Life Orchestra - Peripatetic (Adjacent)
Jeff Greinke - Oceanic (Projekt)
Mark Helias - Snapshot (self-released)
Concepción Huerta - The Earth Has Memory (Elevator Bath)
Vijay Iyer Trio - Compassion (ECM)
Ariel Kalma, Jeremiah Chiu & Marta Sofia Honer - The Closest Thing to Silence (International Anthem)
Roland Kayn - Demodulations (Reiger-records-reeks; recorded 2005)
Franz Koglmann - Near Blue – A Taste of Melancholy (Now-ezz-thetics)
Dominic Lash/N.O. Moore/Alex Ward/Alan Wilkinson - get set (Spoonhunt)
Brendan Murray - Cloud Chamber: Score (self-released)
Osnat Netzer - Dot : Line : Sigh - performances by Osnat Netzer, Geoffrey Landman, Ensemble Dal Niente, and Mivos Quartet (New Focus)
Yuko Nexus6/Takahashi “Takakhan” Seiji - Mushoku in Excursion (Ftarri)
Phill Niblock - Looking for Daniel - Biliana Voutchkova, Ensemble Modelo62, Ensemble Scordatura (Unsounds)
Ivo Perelman - Interaction (Ibeji)
Minami Saeki - vacances - performances by Denis Sorokin, Fredrik Rasten, Taku Sugimoto, Takashi Masubuchi, Lauri Hyvärinen, and Cristián Alvear (Hitorri)
Elliott Sharp - Larynx Live - Orchestra Carbon (Zoar; recorded 1987)
Yuka Shibuya - Found Moment - performances by Satoko Inoue, Shimon Ono, Yui Hosoi, and Kei Sakoda (Ftarri Classical)
Ches Smith - Laugh Ash (Pyroclastic)
Wadada Leo Smith & Joe Morris - Earth’s Frequencies (Fundacja Słuchaj)
The Starless Oracle (Brad E. Rose) - Seastones (The Jewel Garden)
Andrew Tasselmyer - Where Substance Meets Emptiness (Mystery Circles)
Frédéric Tentelier - L’égarement (Hitorri)
Thollem - Words in a Life, One (ESP-Disk’)
Pat Thomas - WAZIFAH volume 3 (scatterArchive)
Various artists - Medical Aid for Palestinians Appeal, February 2024 - compositions by Olivier Messiaen, Cassandra Miller, Linda Catlin Smith, Frank Denyer, Anthony Pateras, Martin Arnold, and more (Another Timbre)
Manfred Werder - ein(e) ausführende(r) seiten 1007-1011 - Jukka-Pekka Kervinen (kvieto)
Aaron Zigman/Mark Campbell - Émigré - vocal soloists, New York Philharmonic Chorus, Shanghai Symphony Orchestra/Long Yu (Deutsche Grammophon; physical release due June 28, 2024)
Upcoming releases.
February 16
The Choir Invisible (Charlotte Greve, Vinnie Sperrazza, Chris Tordini) - Town of Two Faces (Intakt)
James Brandon Lewis Quartet - Transfiguration (Intakt)
February 23
Bruno Duplant - du silence des anges (Moving Furniture)
Isabelle Duthoit & Franz Hautzinger - Dans le Morvan (Relative Pitch)
Fully Celebrated Orchestra - Sob Story (Relative Pitch)
Tomeka Reid, Isidora Edwards, Elisabeth Coudoux - Reid/Edwards/Coudoux (Relative Pitch)
Catherine Sikora, Susan Alcorn - Filament (Relative Pitch)
February 27
Thomas Buckner, Andrew Drury, & James Ilgenfritz - Dérive (Infrequent Seams)
March 1
Michaël Attias - Quartet Music Vol. I: LuMiSong (Out of Your Head)
Gelsey Bell - Heads Together (Gold Bolus)
Morton Feldman/Christian Wolff - The Possibility of A New Work for Electric Guitar - performances by Christian Wolff and Wendy Eisenberg (Other Minds)
Julian Lage - Speak to Me (Blue Note)
Sean Ono Lennon - Asterisms (Tzadik)
Vera Weber & Vicki Ray - A Soft Lunacy (Orenda)
March 11
PNY Quintet (Steve Swell, Rob Brown, Michel Edelin, Peter Giron, John Betsch) - Over the Wall (RogueArt)
March 15
~Nois Saxophone Quartet - Kinds of ~Nois - compositions by Shelley Washington, Gemma Peacocke, and Maria Kaoutzani (Bright Shiny Things)
March 22
Timo Andres - The Blind Bannister - performances by Timo Andres, Inbal Segev, and Metropolis Ensemble/Andre Cyr (Nonesuch)
March 26
Loren Mazzacane Connors & Chris Cochrane - Artemisia (Infrequent Seams)
March 29
Ivo Perelman - Exploring the Unknown (Mahakala Music)
Gabriel Vicéns - Mural - performances by Nu Quintet and others (Stradivarius)
April 5
Dell-Lillinger-Westergaard - DLW: Extended Beats - performances by Dell-Lillinger-Westergaard, Tamara Stefanovich, Martin Adámek, Johannes Brecht, Klangforum Wien, and Sonar Quartett (Bastille Musique)
missing scenes - who is this for (Varia)
May 3
Stefan Crump - Slow Water (Papillon Sounds)
Find many more upcoming releases in For the Record: The Master List.
Photographs by Steve Smith, except where indicated.